ITALY

In March we took a trip to Italy with my sister Sher and her husband Brian and I am just getting around to blogging about it.

MILAN

First impressions definitely did not disappoint. Milan had impressive shopping and beautiful city streets.  We hit up some tourist attractions got an up close and personal glimpse at Lance Armstrong at the starting line of a bike race and then caught a train to Venice.

VENICE

This is What Venice looked like when we arrived.  BREATH TAKING! We took a water taxi to our hotel. (The only room we had booked for the entire trip since we planned the whole thing in two weeks.)

St. Marks Square. We had plenty of time in Venice to take in all the sites. Attended Mass at St. Marks Basically on Sunday. Beautiful!

This is a family picture...We left our Bambina with Callie, my mom, and Derek's mom while we were away (THANK YOU!).  We missed her A LOT...I kept this picture of her in my bag to show strangers. :)

The birds at St. Marks Square were hilarious! 

And a little frightening.  At one point I let out a very loud embarrassing shriek.  I think I might have a bird phobia?  We brought our own bread to feed the birds and the Italian Police got mad at us, SCARY!

I was so afraid it was going to poop on my head!  Brian took this pic up and coming photographer I'd say. :)

FLORENCE

We went on what would later be referred to as the Florence Death March. :)  My sister Sher had packed all the must-see museums into one day and we walked to ALL of them!  Death March or not it was fantastic!  It's interesting how each of the cities have their own flavor.

Walking through the shopping district.

SIENNA

This is us in Sienna we took a moped to a Castle in the Tuscan Hills.  Sound romantic?  It might have been if it wasn't so cold. :)

PISA

We didn't stay in Pisa... just a day trip to see the famous tower.  It was really sweet to see all the architecture that I had studied about in college.

CINQUE TERRE

All I can say is WOW.  This is the most picturesque place I have ever been to!  It's five colorful towns hanging onto cliff-sides over the Mediterranean Sea.  We stayed in Vernazza...and took an incredible hike between the different towns.

On our hike over-looking Vernazza.

Ok just one more pic.

My sister Sher is so AMAZING we planned on warmer weather (even though our brother in law Andy warned us) ... so I didn't pack warm enough, so my sister Sher lent me jackets and sweaters...she is the BEST!  

I think we took a thousand pictures just in the Cinque Terre...every time we looked around there was something more beautiful than before!

ROME

In front of the Trevi fountain.  Rome had great night life...the city is always buzzing...it's crazy to think that this was the center of the universe!

I think the Colosseum was what I was most looking forward to... and it did not disappoint!  The history is interesting... and the structure is so IMPRESSIVE!

Outside.

We found that we liked the street-side food the best.  It was nice to just pop in and have a tasty bite whenever you want.  This particular place had a hilarious butcher in back ... and cashier pictured with the white hat in front.

Vatican City...the Sistine chapel was really sweet...having been there made the movie angels and demons that much more exciting when we got home.

We spent our last night in Italy back at the Colosseum to check it out at night.  What a great adventure!  Just the beginning of many more to come with my wonderful travel partner ;)!